Fixer-Upper

by Meg Harding

  Yanking a hand free, he ran it through his hair and stared up at the house and then down at the fresh sod in the front yard. Was he in over his head? Was he just getting himself into another big mess?

  “Come on,” said Dakota, appearing from around the side of the house and striding quickly toward his truck. “We’ve got shopping to do.”

  Without much choice, Jake followed and climbed silently into the truck. Once seated and buckled in, he stared out the window and watched the scenery flash by. He’d never lived in the suburbs before; he had always lived in an apartment. It was refreshing—and alien—to see the massive yards flashing by with their elaborate landscapes and their individual mailboxes. Soon he would be one of these people, with their flashy yards and their mail that they didn’t need a key to get to.

  He’d have all kinds of space, and he’d be alone in it.

  His fingers began to tap nervously on his knee.

  He’d never lived alone. Not once in his entire life had he lived alone. He’d gone from his parents’, to a dorm, to a shared apartment, and to another apartment that he’d shared for fifteen years with what he’d thought was the love of his life.

  Maybe he could sublet the bottom floor of his house. Did people in the suburbs do that?

  Alone. Alone. Alone.

  “You know,” he said, gaze trained on the blurs outside the window. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve been made to feel like one quite a lot recently. But I’m not. And I’ve never been a disaster. Though I currently am. I can’t deny that.” The tapping of his fingers grew quicker. “I don’t like inactivity, and I hate not having control. You won’t have noticed, I’m sure, but I’m actually very detail oriented when I’m focused.” He gave a low, bitter chuckle. “But see, sometimes I get distracted, and I do stupid things. And I wish I could not get distracted. I really, truly, do.”

  He forced his fingers to stop their tapping and blinked to clear the mist of burning frustration from his eyes. “You make me unaccountably nervous, and I’m sorry for that. If I could stop it, believe me, I would.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m trying, I promise, and really, none of this has been on purpose. I’m not trying to kill you.”

  Tense silence filled the air between them, finally broken by Dakota saying, very slowly, “I didn’t think you were trying to kill me.” The truck slowed to a stop at a red light. “I just thought you were really clumsy. Inept and murderous never crossed my mind. Though, now I might be a little worried.” He didn’t sound worried, though.

  “But,” said Jake, regretting every word that had left his mouth. “I heard Jasper saying….” He trailed off into silence. “Can we forget this conversation ever happened?”

  “I don’t think so,” answered Dakota, glancing at him quickly, the truck inching forward as the light turned green and the person in front of them didn’t move. “What did you hear Jasper saying?”

  Jake buried his face in his palm. “I heard him saying you didn’t have to take me, and he’d understand why you wouldn’t want to.”

  “And what did you hear me say?” asked Dakota.

  “That it was fine, and you’d take me.”

  “Where in that did you get that I had an issue with it? Or did you half listen to a conversation you were eavesdropping on and jump to a wrong conclusion?”

  Jake wanted to curl into a little ball and disappear. “Can you really blame me for thinking that? Every time you come near me, I do something to you. It’s not an unfounded idea.”

  “If I had an issue with you working with us, you wouldn’t be working with us,” stated Dakota. “That simple. If I thought you were a hazard, you’d be done. All of those things that happened were as much my fault as yours. I know better than to come up behind people or to walk under trees that are being trimmed. You need to chill out.”

  His mouth gaped open like a fish. “I don’t know what to say,” he settled on.

  “You could start by telling me why I’m making you nervous.”

  Jake really, truly, did not want to tell him the why of that. His brain raced to come up with a plausible answer. “You’re like a teacher,” he settled on.

  “A teacher?” Dakota sounded baffled, and Jake didn’t blame him.

  He scratched at his jaw, keeping his gaze firmly fixed out the window. “It’s like, when a teacher watches you do something, you could be really good at the something, but once you know they’re watching, it all goes wrong.”

  “You’re saying I give you performance anxiety.”

  “Yes!” agreed Jake, feeling like he was grasping at straws.

  Dakota was looking increasingly doubtful. “I don’t buy it.”

  “Well, why not?” demanded Jake indignantly.

  “You do just fine around Jasper, and he’d be just as much a teacher figure.” Dakota glanced at him, his lips quirking. “That and you’re an awful liar.” He held his hand up to stop Jake from replying. “You know what, I don’t care. Just tell me this, is there anything I can do to make you less nervous or to minimize whatever’s distracting you?”

  Yes, you could become miraculously unattractive to me. Your hair could be a duller shade of black, and your eyes could be narrower. Your cheekbones could be less prominent, and your muscles could be nonexistent. Really, you could be anything but yourself.

  “No,” he said aloud. “It’s just something I have to work through.”

  Chapter Four

  “HOW’S IT coming along?” Dakota asked a very sweaty Jake, who was hunched over a shovel, absolutely exhausted and halfway out of breath. Digging a hole was something that looked relatively easy but was in reality not. If he hadn’t already removed a sizable chunk of yard, he’d have said fuck the koi pond.

  Jake eyed him and his looser posture, the way his hands were crammed into his pockets, his weight on his heels. It was a very casual look. He looked back at the hole, the butterflies in his stomach obnoxiously fluttering. “Very slowly,” he said.

  “Would you like some help?”

  Jake looked back at the pit, fingers clenching and unclenching around the handle of his shovel. “All right.” Please God, do not accidentally let me hit him with this shovel.

  “Great. Let me go get a shovel.” He smiled widely at him before heading off in search of one.

  When Dakota came back, he took the left side of the hole and got right to work, leaving Jake to continue on with the right side. It was mostly silent, save for the occasional grunt Jake released as he tried to pry more than a sprinkling of dirt from the tightly packed earth. Every time a grunt escaped, he could feel his face heat up. He kept his face studiously turned toward the ground so Dakota couldn’t see.

  “You need to drink something,” said Dakota after some time had passed. “You’re really flushed.”

  He felt the tips of his ears go red. He looked up to see Dakota staring at him, honest concern on his face. “I’m fine.”

  Dakota shook his head and propped his shovel against the side of the hole, stepping onto the grass. He dusted dirt from his jeans. “No, come on. I need water, anyways. Gotta keep hydrated in weather like this.”

  He had two options. He could refuse the offer of water, or he could suck it up and go get a drink with Dakota. The first would be stupid—he hadn’t actually had a drink since he’d started working (yes, he’s aware of how stupid that was), and he was hot. So he climbed out of the hole and followed Dakota to his truck.

  Dakota tossed him a cold bottle from the cooler in the back and sat down on the bed of the truck, his long legs stretched out before him, ankles crossed. Jake cautiously sat next to him, leaving a good foot of space between them.

  “Is this the first time you’ve had a yard?” asked Dakota, out of the blue.

  Jake swallowed his mouthful and reluctantly brought the bottle down to rest on his lap. “Yeah. How could you tell?”

  Dakota smiled at him. Jake felt his stomach take a staggering dip, and it took everything he had to maintain eye contact. “You’d never mowed before.�
�

  “I could have hired people to do it for me,” pointed out Jake.

  “Are you going to hire a lawn service for this yard?”

  Jake gazed out over the yard that was slowly coming along, much like the house. They’d just put the new windows in on the bottom floor, and the eaves would be fixed within the next day or two. The painters had even finally moved inside, getting to work on the freshly patched walls of the kitchen. “No,” he said. “I’ll do it myself.”

  “I’m honestly a bit surprised you didn’t try to talk the construction crew into letting you help.”

  He’d wanted to try and was well aware of the absurdity. They’d made it clear on the first day that an offer of help from him was laughable. He was pretty sure the other workers thought Dakota and Jasper were insane for letting him work with them. He offered Dakota a wan smile, not sure what to say.

  “Oh,” said Dakota, his cheeks darkening with the hint of a blush. He stood up, downing the rest of his drink in one go, Adam’s apple bobbing exuberantly. He tossed the bottle into the back of the truck. “Come on. Let’s carve out your pond.”

  They walked back to the hole and got to work carving it out. “Are you going to put a screen over it?” asked Dakota, several minutes in.

  “A screen?” Jake looked at him, pausing in his shoveling. “Ponds need screens?”

  “If you don’t want birds or stray cats to eat your fish they do,” laughed Dakota. “It won’t detract from the look or anything, but if you’re going to put pricey fish in here, I’d try and protect them.”

  “I’ll get a screen,” Jake decided. He did not want any of the local wildlife eating his fish. “Do you think I should get a fish tank for inside the house too?”

  Dakota pushed his hair back behind his ears, tucking away the strands that had come loose from his ponytail. “Do you really like fish or something?”

  Jake actually thought about it. “I’ve never had a fish. My freshman roommate had a goldfish. He said it gave the room life.”

  Dakota looked like he doubted that, but he didn’t argue. “If you like fish, get fish. But there are plenty of other pet options, many of which will be a lot more loving than a bunch of fish.”

  He thought about getting a dog and pictured a puppy bouncing around his house and thought that might be less lonely than a bunch of fish. Or maybe he’d get a cat. How did one decide if they were a cat or a dog person? “Do you have pets?”

  “I’ve got a couple dogs, some horses, a cat, and some ferrets.” He grinned at Jake. “Jasper likes to joke I’m trying to start a petting zoo. Maybe I’ll get some cows next.”

  Jake looked at his backyard, thought of the other backyards he’d seen. “I don’t think I can have a horse here.”

  Dakota snorted. “You can’t. I live on land, just outside of these suburbs. There are a couple ranches near me, but it’s fairly solitary. Very quiet and nice.” He smirked. “I like not having to see my neighbors.”

  “I’m used to hearing my neighbors through the walls,” admitted Jake. “I’m kind of worried I’m going to miss that background noise.”

  Dakota gave an exaggerated shudder. “I’d go crazy if I had to deal with that.”

  Jake shrugged. “You get used to it, and you hear the most interesting stuff. The girl in the dorm next to me my freshman year had a cat that she’d snuck in, and she was amazing with a violin.”

  “Because those two things are totally related,” laughed Dakota.

  “The cat used to meow really loudly, and she’d play the violin to get him to stop. It took the RA four months to figure out she had the cat in there.” He paused in his shoveling. “Did you not live in a dorm when you went to school?”

  “I lived with family while I went to school. Sharing space with a stranger never appealed to me.”

  “Dorms are pretty awful,” conceded Jake. His second roommate had been crazy sexually active, and Jake had spent more time couch surfing than sleeping in his own bed.

  “I’ve heard nothing but horror stories,” agreed Dakota. “I wasn’t eager to have any of my own.”

  “Understandable.”

  Sweat was rolling down Jake’s temple, and he lifted his shirt, trying to wipe it away. All he managed to do was get dirt from his shirt in his eye. Cursing, he dropped the shovel and his shirt, knuckling at his right eye in earnest. It hurt. He tried to open his eye and found that he couldn’t.

  Sweaty fingers wrapped around his wrist and pulled his hand from his face. “Jesus,” huffed Dakota. “Stop, you’re making it worse.” He pushed Jake down till he was sitting on the edge of the hole. “Stay right here.” He climbed out and walked away. Jake watched the sway of his backside with his one good eye.

  At least this time he’d hurt only himself. That was progress. He wondered if he’d end up having to wear an eyepatch. He didn’t think it would be a good look.

  Dakota came back, water bottle in hand.

  “I don’t think making me drink more water is going to fix this,” said Jake.

  “Well that makes two of us,” said Dakota, crouching down in front of him. “I need you to tilt your head back. I’m going to flush the dirt out.”

  “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “If you think it means I’m going to pour this water into your eye, then yes.”

  “I don’t think so.” Jake had a thing about his eyes. He didn’t wear contacts, he didn’t put drops in them, and he avoided the eye doctor like he had the plague. His eyeball was a no-touch zone.

  “I can flush the dirt out, or you can leave it in to get infected.” Dakota looked exasperated, his eyes narrowed with irritation.

  “I’m not going to be able to keep my eye open.” He couldn’t even open it in the first place.

  “You’re going to look beautiful with a glass eye.” He started to stand.

  Jake reached for him, grabbing on to his wrist and tugging. “Fine,” he snapped. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Tilt your head back.”

  Jake tilted his head back, and Dakota moved so he was straddling him. If his eye hadn’t been throbbing, Jake was pretty sure something else would have been taking notice of the suggestive position. It was odd to actually be grateful for the pain in his eye. Dakota hunched over him, grabbing his chin to hold his face steady.

  “Can you open your eye?”

  He got it open to the tiniest of slits.

  Dakota let go of his chin. “I’m going to hold it open.”

  “This is ridiculous,” muttered Jake.

  Dakota’s fingers pried open his eye, holding the lid back. Jake’s eye watered madly, he couldn’t see out of it, and it hurt. The water bottle began to tip. Jake couldn’t do it. He jerked away, and water went sloshing down his face.

  “Seriously,” demanded Dakota. “Are you five?” He moved away from Jake. “I can take you to the eye doctor.”

  “No, no, I’m good. I won’t move this time.”

  He moved.

  “I’m going to get Jasper,” said Dakota. “Stay here.”

  “Why are you going to get Jasper? He doesn’t need to be involved.”

  Dakota gave him a stern look. “Jasper is going to hold your head still before this entire bottle ends up all over you.” He left Jake sitting there, staring after him, unable to open his eye and with water drenching his face and shirt.

  “Unreal,” Jake muttered and sullenly rubbed at his sore eye. He tried blinking, but all he succeeded in doing was making it look like he was crying. Tears were leaking from his abused eye and joining the rest of the water on his face.

  He didn’t have long to wait before Dakota came back with Jasper in tow. Dakota resumed his place in front of Jake, while Jasper took up a position behind him. “Wouldn’t it be easier if we had him lie down?” asked Jasper. “You could sit on him then?”

  “I’m right here,” said Jake indignantly. “No need to talk around me.”

  They ignored him. “We’ll try that next if this does
n’t work,” said Dakota.

  “I’m not lying down in the dirt,” snapped Jake, poking Dakota’s stomach for emphasis and to make sure he had his attention.

  “Fine. Then whether you like it or not, you’ll be going to the eye doctor if you move again.”

  “Fine.”

  Jasper gripped his head on either side, smiling down at him and looking far too amused. Dakota pried his eye back open. The water tipped and right into his eye it went. Jake tried to jerk away but was unable to do so. He settled for cursing, even though the water kept rolling down and getting into his mouth. It was awful. The stream stopped after a minute. “Blink,” Dakota told him, releasing his eyelid. His thumb brushed quickly under Jake’s eye, a brief flash of contact, gone in a second. Jake blinked and still felt like something was in his eye. He considered lying to Dakota, but it must have shown on his face because Dakota sighed and said, “Again.”

  It took four times, and two water bottles, before the water was able to successfully flush the dirt out. By the end they were all, somehow, soaked. Jake felt half-drowned, and despite the dirt not being in his eye anymore, it was sore. His thank-you was stilted, and he didn’t sound like he meant it.

  “Only you,” said Jasper, clapping him on the shoulder. “Try not to do that again.”

  Before they started working on the ponds again, Dakota went and got him a clean rag. “Just because we use our shirts,” he said, “doesn’t mean you have to too.”

  If Jake hadn’t have thought he’d need the rag, he’d have thrown the damn thing at Dakota.

  Chapter Five

  THERE WAS dirt encrusted beneath his nails, and he didn’t think he’d ever get them clean again. Strangely, he didn’t mind. His hands were deep in the ground, scooping it out, smoothing it over, patting it down. He felt like he was on one of those TV shows, sitting down in the grass and planting his plants in his suburban neighborhood.